Box Office: 'Catching Fire' Does, Oscar Films Could Use a Light

In March 2012, “The Hunger Games” had the third-biggest opening weekend ever at $152.5 million, behind only the final chapter of “Harry Potter” ($169m) and “The Dark Knight” ($158m).

A year and a half later, its sequel, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” has opened $10 million bigger—$161 million—giving it ... the fourth-best opening weekend ever, behind “The Avengers” ($207m), “Iron Man 3” ($174m), and the final “Harry Potter.”

So it goes in the battle for opening weekends. You do better and fall behind. A metaphor for our age.

Even so, impressive. Girls rule, etc. Hollywood, take note.

Right. It has. Wrongly, probably.

“Delivery Man,” the poorly reviewed remake of the charming French-Canadian comedy “Starbuck,” was the only other film to open wide this weekend, and it grossed just $8.2 million in 3,036 theaters. Katniss made that in the time it took me to write this paragraph.

Most everything else fell off: “Thor” by 61% (for $14m and second place), “The Best Man Holiday” by 58% (for $12m and third place), “Free Birds” by 34% (for $5.3m and fifth place).